Lisa Bonet

Lisa Michelle Bonet was born on November 16, 1967, in San Francisco, California, to Arlene Joyce Litman, a white Jewish-American schoolteacher, and Allen Bonet, an opera singer of African-American heritage from Texas. She has five half-sisters, including singer Kadhja Bonet, and two half-brothers by her father's marriage to Deborah Church. Bonet's parents separated when Bonet was still a baby. Bonet was raised by her single mother in lower-middle-class Reseda and never knew her father. Bonet said she never fit in at Birmingham High School, in Van Nuys, California. "I was stuck in the middle," she told The Los Angeles Times. “The black kids called me an Oreo. The white kids didn’t talk to me."

She said she did not date in high school because she didn't fit in. “My biggest worry in high school was who was going to take me to the prom, since I didn’t have a date," she told the Los Angeles Times. She said the problem disappeared when she landed the Cosby job in New York and wouldn’t attend prom.

Bonet graduated Birmingham High School and later studied acting at the Celluloid Actor's Studio in North Hollywood.After being in beauty competitions and appearing in guest spots on television series as a child, Bonet landed the role of Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show, the second-oldest child of the parents played by Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad.

That year, Bonet, then 19, played 17-year-old Epiphany Proudfoot in the movie Angel Heart opposite Mickey Rourke. In the film, several seconds of an explicit scene she shared with Rourke (filmed when she was 18) were edited to avoid an X rating. For Angel Heart, Bonet earned a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was featured topless in Interview magazine.

Bonet didn't appreciate the way the press covered her or the controversy at the time. “I think the whole scandal is ridiculous,” she said. “They (the news media) are trying to steam it up.” She said that the brief glimpse of one of her bare breasts is "nothing that hasn't been done before or that hasn't been seen before," including in films like Blue Velvet, which was rated R even though it contained frontal nudity.

In 1986, Bonet earned a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. After announcing her pregnancy during the run of A Different World, Bonet left the series. She returned to The Cosby Show the following year, but was fired in April 1991 because of "creative differences".

In September 1992, Bonet hosted Why Bother Voting?, an election special focusing on young voters' concerns and apathy. She had supporting roles in the 1998 film Enemy of the State and the 2000 film High Fidelity. In 2003 she played Queenie in Biker Boyz, which reunited her with her A Different World co-star Kadeem Hardison.

Bonet co-starred in the film Whitepaddy in 2005. She did not have another film role until 2014's Road to Paloma, opposite her future husband Jason Momoa. She did, however, appear in a number of television series, including the American adaptation of the British television series Life on Mars. She again played a romantic lead opposite Jason Momoa on the Sundance TV series The Red Road. “I felt protected and I feel safe when I work with him," Bonet said of working with Momoa.

Since then, Bonet has made guest appearances on TV shows including Girls and Ray Donovan.